:00:03. > :00:13.defectors have been sent to labour camps and some were executed.
:00:13. > :00:16.
:00:16. > :00:21.Now on BBC News, it's time for Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen
:00:21. > :00:24.Sackur. The International Committee of the Red Cross is pulling some of
:00:24. > :00:29.its international staff out of Afghanistan following an attack on
:00:29. > :00:35.its Jalalabad compound. It is an unprecedented move in three decades
:00:35. > :00:40.of operations in Afghanistan. In Syria, Red Cross efforts to get aid
:00:40. > :00:45.into the besieged town of Qusair are being thwarted as fighting
:00:45. > :00:49.rages. My guest today is Pierre Krahenbuhl. ICRC operations
:00:49. > :00:59.director. Is this organisation being overwhelmed by the danger and
:00:59. > :01:24.
:01:24. > :01:29.Pierre Krahenbuhl, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you.Does it feel
:01:29. > :01:33.as though the ICRC is in the firing line as ever before -- as never
:01:34. > :01:40.before? Reworking conflict situations and it is always
:01:40. > :01:44.extremely challenging to maintain activities. Things We do for people
:01:44. > :01:49.on a day-to-day basis on many of these conflict sones, Afghanistan,
:01:49. > :01:52.Congo, Syria and others, and every single day there is a lot of effort
:01:52. > :01:57.that goes into training the security of our staff and making
:01:57. > :02:03.sure we meet -- reach the people we make a difference. It seems like
:02:03. > :02:07.the tipping point in Afghanistan. You know Jalalabad well. Now, you,
:02:07. > :02:12.as director of operations, have had to respond to a murderous attack on
:02:12. > :02:18.your compound in that city. And you have decided to pull significant
:02:18. > :02:23.numbers of international staff out. Why? We have to set it in the right
:02:23. > :02:28.context. It's a shocking attack and we did lose one colleague. It could
:02:28. > :02:32.have been more. We need to take this particular event seriously. At
:02:32. > :02:38.the same time, we have a 30-year long commitment to Afghanistan and
:02:38. > :02:42.its people and this has taken forms of medical activities, huge numbers
:02:42. > :02:47.of activities in terms of physical rehabilitation, and the Tees,
:02:47. > :02:51.people who have lost their limbs as a result of mine accidents,
:02:51. > :02:56.visiting prisons. -- and the keys. That is not something we will give
:02:56. > :03:01.up easily. Over 30 years, what sort of signal to the defence to the
:03:01. > :03:06.people of Afghanistan, particularly in the context of coalition,
:03:06. > :03:10.Western forces, leaving this year and next year, to be out by 2014,
:03:10. > :03:16.what sort of signal are you sending to the Afghan people now with this
:03:16. > :03:20.pullback decision? Festival, we are suspending activities until we have
:03:21. > :03:25.a better understanding of what happened. Few people may be
:03:25. > :03:29.withdrawn temporarily but there's no decision whatsoever on the
:03:29. > :03:33.future. Our commitment is to continue working there. We will
:03:33. > :03:36.look for a way to continue serving the Afghan people. It should not be
:03:36. > :03:40.misunderstood for leaving Afghanistan and giving up on our
:03:40. > :03:45.commitments. We owe it to our staff to take the right decisions, in
:03:45. > :03:49.terms of security. But the work, that is a commitment, will continue.
:03:49. > :03:54.Do you feel a terrible burden when you get the news that there has
:03:54. > :03:59.been an attack, one of the staff is dead, and in this case it was a
:03:59. > :04:04.local member of staff? In the end, the buck stops with you. I wonder
:04:04. > :04:09.how you cope with the responsibility. It is probably the
:04:09. > :04:15.heaviest part of the role that I have, with the overview of our
:04:15. > :04:22.activities worldwide. Every single day, every single hour of the day,
:04:22. > :04:27.an ICRC team together, sometimes with partners in the Red Cross
:04:27. > :04:32.societies, is somewhere in the world in harm's way. In all the
:04:32. > :04:37.activities in Syria at the moment, many of the danger it -- areas are
:04:37. > :04:41.dangers, certainly Somalia, my own experiences in Afghanistan and
:04:41. > :04:47.Bosnia. It is one of the most serious responsibilities, to ensure
:04:47. > :04:56.that when we send staff somewhere, we have invested in terms of the
:04:56. > :05:00.networks, the understanding for the role of the ICRC, a non-political
:05:00. > :05:05.role to generate the necessary trust. I come back to the notion of
:05:05. > :05:10.a tipping point. The Red Cross has been going, I think 150 years this
:05:10. > :05:13.year you are marking it, and I wonder whether ever before in the
:05:13. > :05:19.history of your organisation you have operated in a context where,
:05:19. > :05:25.for example, in the recent past we have seen relief and aid workers in
:05:25. > :05:30.countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria as well, being
:05:30. > :05:35.assassinated simply because they were trying to deliver vaccinations
:05:35. > :05:39.to poor people who desperately needed them. That is the context in
:05:39. > :05:44.which the Red Cross asked to work today. The context you have never
:05:44. > :05:48.actually had to cope with in that way before? I think there is a
:05:48. > :05:55.paradox. On the one hand, I sincerely can say that today we
:05:55. > :05:59.have a better reach in many parts of the world than we ever had
:05:59. > :06:04.before. There is more members of ICRC present around the world than
:06:04. > :06:09.ever before. -- there are more. more are being injured and dying
:06:09. > :06:16.than ever before. But in overall terms, the worst year we ever had
:06:16. > :06:19.in terms of loss of life is 1996. The very serious attacks in
:06:19. > :06:29.Chechnya and the windier. It is true that every single year we face
:06:29. > :06:29.
:06:29. > :06:32.the risk. -- volunteer. But there is perhaps more of the element of
:06:32. > :06:39.targeting. Perhaps being at the wrong time in the wrong place,
:06:39. > :06:43.maybe an incident that was very unfortunate. This element of
:06:43. > :06:48.targeting, which appeared in the incident in Jalalabad, is one we
:06:48. > :06:51.have to take very seriously. Again, mindful of the history of your
:06:51. > :06:56.organisation, you are intimately tied with the notion of certain
:06:56. > :06:59.rules that govern warfare, the Geneva conventions. In essence, you
:06:59. > :07:03.are seeing as one of the organisation's key to monitoring
:07:03. > :07:09.the way in which conflict and warfare is conducted. It seems to
:07:09. > :07:14.me in so many of the conflicts we see today, which are often internal,
:07:14. > :07:23.within states, not necessarily involving front lines, armies,
:07:23. > :07:25.uniformed personnel, much more diffused and complex than that,
:07:25. > :07:30.they are the traditional assumptions made by people like you
:07:30. > :07:33.at the Red Cross headquarters no longer apply? One thing you can be
:07:33. > :07:37.sure about when you turn 150 is you know that you constantly have to
:07:37. > :07:41.revisit the assumptions that you were quick and actually when we
:07:41. > :07:49.talk about the Geneva conventions, adopted in 1949, or when they talk
:07:49. > :07:55.about the ways in which we worked in the post-cold-war environment,
:07:55. > :07:58.where it was more about a mix of grievances. Very fragmented from
:07:58. > :08:03.the 50 armed groups we deal within the eastern DRC or the many
:08:03. > :08:08.different factions the find across Syria today. People you are having
:08:08. > :08:11.to deal with, negotiate with, to try to reach what you need
:08:11. > :08:15.humanitarian wise, these are not symmetries doing any conventions,
:08:15. > :08:20.not people who have made commitment to abide by any particular laws of
:08:20. > :08:25.war at all. That is one of the challenges, when they are so
:08:25. > :08:31.fragmented and diverse, how can you make sure that the role you have is
:08:31. > :08:35.understood? This is something I remember from a few years ago. A
:08:35. > :08:39.number they are the group said it took them four years to get used to
:08:39. > :08:43.last there. Every time you talk about neutrality, your independence,
:08:44. > :08:48.we look at the list of donors and wondered how it worked. My
:08:48. > :08:52.experiences, where I have worked myself in Bosnia or Peru,
:08:52. > :08:57.Afghanistan, also what I see in teams around the world today, is
:08:57. > :09:02.you can only convince and create trust by making sure that what you
:09:02. > :09:06.do is quality and that to make a difference for people. It is work
:09:06. > :09:13.over a long period of time that convinces people. And it does not
:09:13. > :09:17.always work, does it? You just used a key word. Neutrality underpins
:09:17. > :09:23.what the ICRC is all about but I would put it to you that in a
:09:23. > :09:28.conflict like the current conflict in Syria, the notion of your even-
:09:28. > :09:35.handedness, your eye to neutrality, can't work because the fact is you
:09:35. > :09:40.can only do what you do with the authorisation, the say so, of the
:09:40. > :09:45.airside government in Damascus. Therefore, you are seeing by those
:09:45. > :09:51.who live in rebel-held areas, the rebel fighters themselves, as an
:09:51. > :09:58.organisation that is in hock to the sad regime. -- President Assad
:09:58. > :10:06.government. There's no doubt I -- the ICRC negotiates in order to
:10:06. > :10:15.reach populations and people that need help. But you do not go out to
:10:15. > :10:19.the Syrian opposition held areas, as you could, through borders,
:10:19. > :10:24.without you could do that but you choose not to. Over the last four
:10:24. > :10:28.weeks, we had a team permanently held in Aleppo. One of the city's
:10:28. > :10:32.most effective and very seriously affected. We have now spent four
:10:32. > :10:36.weeks there every morning. We have gone across the lines into
:10:36. > :10:41.opposition held areas and we have provided medical assistance. That
:10:41. > :10:45.is how we build our way. Patiently on the ground. Building relations,
:10:45. > :10:49.focusing on needs and actually reaching them. It is making a
:10:49. > :10:55.difference. We have progressed significantly in Syria. You say
:10:55. > :10:59.that but the fact is, you at the ICRC have to work in conjunction
:10:59. > :11:03.with the local Red Cross, Red Crescent, organisations inside
:11:03. > :11:08.Syria. We know the Red Crescent has faced huge amounts of pressure from
:11:08. > :11:18.the Damascus government. Key officials we in the Red Crescent
:11:18. > :11:24.have been detained for long periods. We have had reports of at least 12
:11:24. > :11:28.Red Crescent volunteers killed since the conflict began. People
:11:28. > :11:33.say there is a concerted effort to intimidated. That is the reality.
:11:33. > :11:42.There are always pressures at very senior level scholar from political
:11:42. > :11:47.levels and on military terms. Every group would like to serve its own
:11:47. > :11:52.side. But it is not possible to be fully impartial, as the conflict
:11:52. > :11:58.has suggested. It deserves a lot of credit for what it has achieved. It
:11:58. > :12:02.has thousands of volunteers. That is in every single district of the
:12:02. > :12:06.country. It is in contact with very different sides. The role of the
:12:06. > :12:12.ICRC is also to support that role. We are open for a critical review
:12:12. > :12:19.but it is true that they deserve a lot of credit. Is the wider war
:12:19. > :12:21.historical truth the lesson of the Red Cross's history? I am
:12:21. > :12:31.particularly thinking of the experience in the Second World War
:12:31. > :12:32.
:12:32. > :12:36.and the crushing failure of the ICRC to speak out against what the
:12:36. > :12:42.Nazis did. Is that not a lesson that tells us more, rather than
:12:42. > :12:46.this notion of the iron rule of neutrality? World War II is a very
:12:46. > :12:53.big topic and it is true that even today we continue to try to draw
:12:53. > :12:58.lessons from the mistakes that were made at the time. But nobody
:12:58. > :13:02.warning the ICRC was born neutral. We all have our hearts in the right
:13:02. > :13:06.place. When we come and we see a particular result of a gruesome
:13:06. > :13:10.attack and the impact of people on the ground, our very first instinct
:13:10. > :13:14.is to call a press conference and announce what we have seen. But the
:13:14. > :13:18.thing about our way of working is that we know that the next day we
:13:18. > :13:21.must return to that place of detention to try to continue to
:13:21. > :13:25.monitor conditions of detainees. It is one of the most enduring
:13:25. > :13:31.dilemmas of the ICRC and every staff member, to find a balance
:13:31. > :13:33.between what we do say publicly, because we do speak out, and how do
:13:33. > :13:38.we preserve the trust and understanding of the parties in
:13:38. > :13:41.order to preserve the possibility to help you will completely. But
:13:41. > :13:44.sometimes going back in and thinking about the next thing, the
:13:44. > :13:49.desire to work with the perpetrators of the evil that you
:13:49. > :13:55.want to denounce, it simply serves to buttress the position of those
:13:55. > :13:58.people who have done with good things, does it not? E is a form of
:13:58. > :14:05.acknowledgement. It is absolutely true that that is
:14:05. > :14:11.right. -- it's a form. We are not naive about the fact that there
:14:11. > :14:16.will be those who try to manipulate the role of the ICRC. But added
:14:16. > :14:23.element is over time and we do not take no for an answer easily. --
:14:23. > :14:29.our development. We persist and that leads to results. Let us not
:14:29. > :14:34.just stick to lessons learned from the 1930s and 1940s and the
:14:34. > :14:38.Holocaust and the ICRC's mistakes, let's talk about more recent events.
:14:38. > :14:41.In this studio, we spoke to the Dutch journalist not long ago who
:14:41. > :14:48.has written extensively about what she sees as the fundamental flaws
:14:48. > :14:57.in the notion of neutral, in partial aid delivery. Perky
:14:57. > :15:01.instance his 1994, will wonder, and the fact that international aid
:15:01. > :15:11.organisations ended up offering safe haven, shelter and long-term
:15:11. > :15:16.
:15:16. > :15:26.support to the genocide perpetrators. -- Rwanda. Hutu
:15:26. > :15:26.
:15:26. > :16:56.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 90 seconds
:16:56. > :17:06.killers were sheltered by aid There are things that we do not do
:17:06. > :17:20.
:17:20. > :17:28.in order to be avoiding being And there are so much money in this
:17:28. > :17:38.relief. In a sense, they need to have a crisis to respond to to
:17:38. > :17:38.
:17:38. > :17:45.raise the money. She would Guards it now as almost self perpetuating.
:17:45. > :17:49.-- she regards it. I'd look at what we are dealing within Syria and in
:17:49. > :17:54.northern Mali when the country was split in half and under control of
:17:54. > :18:01.radical opposition groups. We were very much alone. There was no
:18:01. > :18:08.caravan there. There was no gap. Huge gaps. One of the things that I
:18:08. > :18:14.think is the most important is the importance of returning to more
:18:14. > :18:19.active management in political terms. The reasons why concerts
:18:19. > :18:25.last for so long, and I can confirm that with t?I ? that with t
:18:25. > :18:30.Afghanistan and Congo, the scene to be so difficult to end Millett
:18:30. > :18:35.Adderley or resolved politically. The political management in this
:18:35. > :18:40.day and age is to do with missing links in the system which create
:18:40. > :18:48.the dynamic of long-term assistance. That has to be looked at very
:18:48. > :18:53.carefully. Another political question is one that the
:18:53. > :19:01.International Red Cross has not engaged with but perhaps you should.
:19:01. > :19:07.Looking at the way the Geneva Convention is used today. There are
:19:07. > :19:14.so many challenges. The way the American administrations since 9/11
:19:14. > :19:20.has interpreted its legal right to conduct mil?I ? conduct milration
:19:20. > :19:25.would call it acts of war, against terrorist targets around the world.
:19:25. > :19:30.The just had an interview with the State Department former lawyer
:19:30. > :19:36.saying that we regard this as being internationally sanctioned under
:19:36. > :19:44.the rules of government warfare. I am talking about drone strings. Is
:19:44. > :19:50.that how you see it? -- drone strikes. There were challenges.
:19:50. > :19:58.People said the Geneva Convention was outdated. Up people said it
:19:58. > :20:03.needed to be devised. We said that we should take care what is
:20:03. > :20:07.generated. There is the legacy of World War II. That was the
:20:07. > :20:12.consensus that emerged from the biggest calamity mankind ever
:20:12. > :20:18.inflicted on itself. Of course we need to reinforce the lot. You talk
:20:18. > :20:23.about drones. Drones are not in themselves an instrument or a
:20:23. > :20:32.weapon of war that is illegal under international law. It is how they
:20:32. > :20:41.the battlefield, say in Afghanistan or Yeoman... Yemen is not a
:20:41. > :20:46.Pakistan. Hundreds and hundreds of people had been killed including,
:20:46. > :20:51.according to a Washington think- tank, more than 300 civilians
:20:51. > :20:55.killed in a US don't strike. Does the International Committee of the
:20:55. > :21:00.Red Cross not have a duty, when you talk about the duty to sometimes
:21:00. > :21:05.break your own rules and speak out, have a duty to express your opinion
:21:05. > :21:09.about how this squares with the international rules that govern
:21:09. > :21:16.conflict and war? We have just put out a series of public points on
:21:16. > :21:21.the use of drones. That is where I was making this distinction. We do
:21:21. > :21:26.not agree on the notion that there is one Global World Wide
:21:26. > :21:31.battlefield on which people can be targeted under the laws of war at
:21:31. > :21:37.any time throughout the year. We had to take a complex view what the
:21:37. > :21:42.legal framework is that applies to the use of drones. The final
:21:42. > :21:45.thought is an important one. It is about your relation with the
:21:45. > :21:53.International Criminal Court. We have characterised you as wanting
:21:53. > :21:56.to defend the basic standards and conventions that governed conflict.
:21:57. > :22:04.When you're opera pits on the ground come up whether it is Sri
:22:04. > :22:08.Lanka, 2008, Syria, today, we ever it is, then you see the worst
:22:08. > :22:13.abuses of the rules of conflict and war fare, is there not a long-term
:22:13. > :22:19.duty on your people to give their testimony, to bear witness before
:22:19. > :22:23.the International Criminal Court. It is clear that the role of the
:22:23. > :22:29.criminal court is very important in terms of fighting impunity. That is
:22:29. > :22:34.a role that we support very clearly. What we will not do, the line we
:22:34. > :22:42.will not cross, is to provide testimony or elements that we have
:22:42. > :22:47.seen on the ground or observations by our own staff. From the moment
:22:47. > :22:55.that I have been sitting with you, if you were a commander somewhere,
:22:55. > :23:00.if that person thought we were having a conversation that seeks to
:23:00. > :23:04.define the control or the behaviour of his people towards detainees,
:23:04. > :23:11.the bond they thought that this exchange could be part of a
:23:11. > :23:16.criminal proceeding, that would end the possibility for us to help.
:23:16. > :23:21.the argument about making rules without exceptions? Going back to
:23:21. > :23:27.the Nat says. What about an individual responsible for mass
:23:27. > :23:32.killing today. You're seeing your people will not testify under any
:23:32. > :23:36.circumstances? From World War II, it was less that the committee at
:23:36. > :23:39.the time chose not to speak out that the fact that they did not
:23:39. > :23:43.send someone to tell the German authorities at the time but they
:23:43. > :23:47.had learned. It takes a great deal of the zillions and courage to go
:23:47. > :23:53.and sit down, as I have done and others have done, with people who
:23:53. > :23:57.are in charge and have the fate of populations and their hands and
:23:57. > :24:04.tried to influence the decisions they have. This is not about
:24:04. > :24:10.arrogance. This is about a deep- seated belief. It is backed up with